Thursday, July 31, 2014

Scarborough described himself as having a record as one
of Israel’s biggest supporters, saying, “I’ve always been a 100 percent
supporter of Israel. The joke in Congress was anytime I wanted a key to
the city of Tel Aviv, I could, you know, get a gold-plated one.” But on Thursday he warned that the mounting civilian death toll was
not just tragic for the Palestinians, but harmful both to Israel and the
U.S. “The United States of America — we cannot be associated with this if
this continues. This is so bad, not only for the Israeli people, but for
us,” Scarborough said.(Also on POLITICO: 10 Israeli media attacks on Kerrry)

UN Official Breaks Down Crying Live on Air For Chris Gunness, a
spokesman for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency, which has
numerous facilities in Gaza, it's all too much. This is the sixth time
UNRWA sites have been hit during Israel's current campaign.

Below: Sean Hannity tried to strike back at Russell Brand, but ended up having to answer pointed questions from Geraldo Rivera about his simplistic, Israel-can-do-no-wrong view of Middle-Eastern politics.

Wednesday, July 30, 2014

...It’s worth listening carefully when Netanyahu speaks [in Hebrew] to the Israeli
people. What is going on in Palestine today is not really about Hamas.
It is not about rockets. It is not about “human shields” or terrorism or
tunnels. It is about Israel’s permanent control over Palestinian land
and Palestinian lives. That is what Netanyahu is really saying, and that
is what he now admits he has “always” talked about. It is about an
unswerving, decades-long Israeli policy of denying Palestine
self-determination, freedom, and sovereignty. What
Israel is doing in Gaza now is collective punishment. It is punishment
for Gaza’s refusal to be a docile ghetto. It is punishment for the gall
of Palestinians in unifying, and of Hamas and other factions in
responding to Israel’s siege and its provocations with resistance, armed
or otherwise, after Israel repeatedly reacted to unarmed protest with
crushing force. Despite years of ceasefires and truces, the siege of
Gaza has never been lifted... Read more...

Oscar winners Penelope Cruz, Javier Bardem and Pedro Almodovar, have denounced Israel's incursion into Gaza. In an open letter referenced by Europa Press and other Spanish media, they described Israel's actions as "genocide." They also called on the European Union to "condemn the bombing by
land, sea and air against the Palestinian civilian population in the
Gaza Strip." In the open letter, they demanded a cease-fire by the Israeli
military and urged Israel to "lift the blockade, which the Gaza Strip
has suffered for more than a decade." The letter also said: "Gaza is living through horror these days,
besieged and attacked by land, sea and air. Palestinians' homes are
being destroyed, they are being denied water, electricity [and] free
movement to their hospitals, schools and fields while the international
community does nothing." Others who signed the letter include directors Montxo Armendariz and Benito Zambrano; actors Lola Herrera, Eduardo Noriega and Rosa Maria Sarda; and musicians Amaral and Nacho Campillo.

Below is Bardem in "Before Night Falls" playing gay Cuban writer Reynaldo Arenas. Bardem's performance in that film won him the first Best Actor nomination by a Spanish national in Hollywood history. He lost, but later won a Best Supporting Actor Oscar for his work in No Country for Old Men.

(Note: to see all AKSARBENT's posts on the intensifying crisis in Gaza, click "Gaza" at the bottom of this post, after the word "Labels:)

This is the government that is getting $3.1 billion of your taxes each and every year, courtesy of, among others, Rep. Lee Terry(402-397-9944, 202-225-4155, @LeeTerryNE on twitter) and and Rep. Adrian Smith (308-384-3900, 308-633-6333, 202-225-0207, @RepAdrianSmith on twitter).
From the YouTube description of the video, shot by a disgusted Israeli:

Video from the extreme-right demonstration in Rabin Square, Tel Aviv.
The demonstration was held across the square from a much bigger
pro-peace demonstration that took place at the same time.

Nevertheless, 87% of Israelis in a recent poll apparently want Israel to keep bombing Gaza back into the stone age.
Another of the chants: "There's no school tomorrow, there's no children left in Gaza! Oleh! Oleh!" Well, maybe it's catchier in Hebrew.
You can watch the video here. Click "CC" then "Translate Captions" then select "English", then restart the video.

Tuesday, July 29, 2014

Always watching: last week's AKSARBENT post about the silent protest by many Omahans
of Israel's latest attack on civilians in Gaza has already attracted the attention of the F.B.I.

Here's the ACLU press release:

(Washington, DC) – Large-scale US surveillance is seriously hampering US-based journalists and lawyers in their work,
Human Rights Watch and the American Civil Liberties Union said in a
joint report released today. Surveillance is undermining media freedom
and the right to counsel, and ultimately obstructing the American
people’s ability to hold their government to account, the groups said. The 120-page report, “With Liberty to Monitor All: How Large-Scale US Surveillance is Harming Journalism, Law, and American Democracy,”
is based on extensive interviews with dozens of journalists, lawyers,
and senior US government officials. It documents how national security
journalists and lawyers are adopting elaborate steps or otherwise
modifying their practices to keep communications, sources, and other
confidential information secure in light of revelations of unprecedented
US government surveillance of electronic communications and
transactions. The report finds that government surveillance and secrecy
are undermining press freedom, the public’s right to information, and
the right to counsel, all human rights essential to a healthy democracy. “The work of journalists and lawyers is central to our democracy,”
said report author Alex Sinha, Aryeh Neier Fellow at Human Rights Watch
and the American Civil Liberties Union. “When their work suffers, so do
we."

The Impact of Surveillance on Journalism The report is drawn from interviews with some 50 journalists covering
intelligence, national security, and law enforcement for outlets
including the New York Times, the Associated Press, ABC, and NPR.The US has long held itself out as a global leader on media freedom.
However, journalists interviewed for the report are finding that
surveillance is harming their ability to report on matters of great
public concern.Surveillance has magnified existing concerns among journalists and
their sources over the administration’s crackdown on leaks. The
crackdown includes new restrictions on contact between intelligence
officials and the media, an increase in leak prosecutions, and the
Insider Threat Program, which requires federal officials to report one
another for “suspicious” behavior that might betray an intention to leak
information. Journalists interviewed for the report said that surveillance
intimidates sources, making them more hesitant to discuss even
unclassified issues of public concern. The sources fear they could lose
their security clearances, be fired, or – in the worst case – come under
criminal investigation. “People are increasingly scared to talk about anything,” observed one
Pulitzer Prize winner, including unclassified matters that are of
legitimate public concern. Many journalists described adopting elaborate techniques in an
environment of tremendous uncertainty in an effort to protect evidence
of their interaction with sources. The techniques ranged from using
encryption and air-gapped computers (which stay completely isolated from
unsecured networks, including the Internet), to communicating with
sources through disposable “burner” phones, to abandoning electronic
communications altogether. Those cumbersome new techniques are slowing
down reporters in their pursuit of increasingly skittish sources,
resulting in less information reaching the public.This situation has a direct effect on the public’s ability to obtain
important information about government activities, and on the ability of
the media to serve as a check on government, Human Rights Watch and the
ACLU found. Journalists expressed concern that, rather than being treated as
essential checks on government and partners in ensuring a healthy
democratic debate, they may be viewed as suspect for doing their jobs.
One prominent journalist summed up what many seemed to be feeling: “I
don’t want the government to force me to act like a spy. I’m not a spy;
I’m a journalist.”

The Impact of Surveillance on the Practice of Law For lawyers, large-scale surveillance has created concerns about their
ability to meet their professional responsibilities to maintain
confidentiality of information related to their clients. Failure to meet
those responsibilities can result in discipline through professional
organizations, or even lawsuits.Lawyers also rely on the free exchange of information with their
clients to build trust and develop legal strategy. Concerns over
government surveillance are making it harder for attorneys – especially,
but not exclusively, defense attorneys – to build trust with their
clients or protect their legal strategies. Both problems corrode the
ability of lawyers to represent their clients effectively. As with the journalists, lawyers increasingly feel pressure to adopt
strategies to avoid leaving a digital trail that could be monitored.
Some use burner phones, others seek out technologies designed to provide
security, and still others reported traveling more for in-person
meetings. Like journalists, some feel frustrated, and even offended,
that they are in this situation. “I’ll be damned if I have to start
acting like a drug dealer in order to protect my client’s
confidentiality,” said one. The result of the anxieties over confidentiality is the erosion of
the right to counsel, a pillar of procedural justice under human rights
law and the US Constitution, Human Rights Watch and the ACLU found. The US has an obligation to protect national security, and under
human rights standards, it may engage in surveillance to that end, but
only to the extent that surveillance is lawful, necessary, and
proportionate, and the least intrusive means to protect against tangible
threats to national security. Many existing surveillance programs are
indiscriminate or overbroad, and threaten freedom of expression, the
right to counsel, and the public’s ability to hold its government to
account. Programs allowing surveillance of non-US persons offer even
fewer protections. The US should reform its surveillance programs to
ensure that they are targeted and legitimate, increase transparency
around national security and surveillance matters, and take steps for
better protection of whistleblowers and the media, Human Rights Watch
and the ACLU said. “The US holds itself out as a model of freedom and democracy, but its
own surveillance programs are threatening the values it claims to
represent,” Sinha said. “The US should genuinely confront the fact that
its massive surveillance programs are damaging many critically important
rights.”

To see the video from which the transcript below was made, go to Democracy Now's website.
Here is the preliminary transcript in its entirety:

Five years ago Palestinian student Amer Shurrab lost his two
brothers in Israel’s Operation Cast Lead. Last week, Shurrab learned
four of his cousins in Gaza had been killed in Israel’s latest
offensive. In January 2009, Amer’s father and brothers were fleeing
their village when the vehicle they were driving in came under Israeli
fire. Twenty-eight-year-old Kassab died in a hail of bullets trying to
flee the vehicle. Amer’s other brother, 18-year-old Ibrahim, survived
the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to allow an ambulance to
reach him until 20 hours later. By then, it was too late. Ibrahim had
bled to death in front of his father. A graduate student at Monterey
Institute of International Studies in California, Amer Shurrab has been
recounting the story of his brothers and other Palestinians at college
campuses and community gatherings across the United States. "Israel is
deliberately targeting civilians from the day one of this attack," he
says. "They have been bombing houses, wiping entire families to try to
scare people into submission."AMYGOODMAN:
We’re joined right now by Amer Shurrab, a Palestinian graduate student
from Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip. He’s studying at the Monterey
Institute of International Studies in California. He has just learned
that four of his cousins have died in Khan Younis. We last spoke to him
five years ago. It was shortly after he lost his two brothers during
Israel’s assault on Gaza known as Operation Cast Lead. In 2009, January,
his dad and two brothers were fleeing their village when their vehicle
came under Israeli fire. His brother, 28-year-old Kassab, died in a hail
of bullets trying to flee the vehicle. His other brother, Ibrahim, 18
years old, survived the initial attack, but Israeli troops refused to
allow an ambulance to reach him and his father until 20 hours later. By
then, it was too late. Ibrahim had bled to death in front of his father.
Amer Shurrab has been recounting the story of his brothers and other
Palestinians at college campuses and community gatherings across the
United States. And it was just recently that he learned about his
cousins in Khan Younis.We welcome you back to Democracy Now!, I’m sorry under such
sad circumstances. My condolences to you and your family, Amer. Can you
talk about what you’ve just learned?AMERSHURRAB:
Thank you, Amy, for having me again, and I wish next time we meet will
be under better circumstances. So, last week, actually, last Tuesday, I
got news from Gaza via a friend that my cousin, Mohammed Tayseer, was
killed. He was targeted by one of those drones that Sharif was talking
about. He was visiting some friends. He left their house at 1:00 a.m.,
started walking home, and on the walk home he was directly targeted by a
drone. A couple hours later, actually, the house of the friends that he
was visiting was bombed by the Israeli Air Force, and it killed two and
injured several other people. His dad—because those friends are their
neighbors, his dad went to visit—ran to the house of the neighbors, the
friends, to help evacuate the wounded, in fear of the house being bombed
again. And the dad was looking for Mohammed, his eldest son, his
22-year-old eldest son, and was looking for him to help. A couple hours
later, once light started coming out, people saw a body on the street
that they realized was Mohammed’s.

AMYGOODMAN: How old was Mohammed?

AMERSHURRAB: Twenty-two.

AMYGOODMAN: How old was Tayseer?

AMERSHURRAB: Tayseer is in his fifties, 55 now.

AMYGOODMAN: And you had two other cousins.

AMERSHURRAB:
Three cousins, three brothers, three second cousins, they—was
Wednesday—their house in the Sheikh Nasser region in Khan Younis was
bombed by the Israeli Air Forces. A four-story house was flattened to
the ground. Initial news that there were three people killed and several
wounded. Then we got news later that no one was hurt. And then, the
next morning, Thursday morning, they extracted the body of Iyad. And
then, the next morning, during the 12-hour ceasefire, they had more time
to dig through the rubble and found two more bodies of his brothers,
two of his brothers. And they were all recently married. They, all three
of them, got married either last year or the year before.

AMYGOODMAN: Now, we last talked in 2009. You had just graduated from Middlebury College in Vermont.

AMERSHURRAB: Yes.

AMYGOODMAN:
This was the period of Operation Cast Lead, as the Israeli military
called, when more than 1,400 Palestinians were killed. Describe what
happened to your brothers and your dad.

AMERSHURRAB:
Well, Amy, my dad and brothers were in our farm in the Fukhari region,
and they were driving home during the ceasefire, the humanitarian lull
that Israel announced, and they waited ’til the middle of that
ceasefire. They were driving home. They drove for about half a kilometer
or kilometer. They faced a tank on the side of the road. They were
waved through by the tank. And then, once they drove a couple hundred
meters past it, Israeli soldiers stationed in a civilian house—they
occupied a civilian house and took at least 11 residents as hostages in
that house—they opened fire on them indisriminately.

AMYGOODMAN: On your father and two brothers, the car.

AMERSHURRAB:
On the—yes. My dad was hit while driving. They hit a wall. The car came
to a halt. They ordered them to get out of the car. Kassab was in the
passenger seat, got out. He was shot. Later, we realized he had 18
bullets across his chest, his stomach and his arms. My dad got out, and
he ducked by the car. My brother Ibrahim, who was in the back seat, got
out, and he was also shot in his left leg. And then he—initially, they
wouldn’t allow my dad or Ibrahim to call an ambulance or even to check
on Kassab’s body. They had no idea what happened to him. That was around
1:00 p.m.

AMYGOODMAN: I mean, it was just feet away.

AMERSHURRAB:
Yeah, few feet away. Yeah, few feet, like on the other side of the car,
basically. And they wouldn’t let him check on them. My dad only
confirmed Kassab’s death about five hours later, after sunset, when he
saw cats nibbling on his body. He challenged the soldiers’ orders not to
move, challenged the rounds they fired around him, checked on Kassab,
realized he was dead and covered his face with his jacket and crawled
back next to Ibrahim. They were pinned next to the car for over—about 24
hours. Ibrahim passed away. Shooting happened around 1:00 p.m. Ibrahim
passed away around midnight. Ambulances were not allowed through, until—

AMYGOODMAN: How do you know this?

AMERSHURRAB:
My dad wrote an account of that ordeal, of that whole story, from his
hospital bed. He wrote it the day after, and over two days, because he
wanted to remember it, he wanted it memorized. When I first reached him
over his cellphone, once he got to the hospital, he told me, "Tell
people what happened to us. Tell them what happened to us. Your brothers
don’t deserve this. Everyone needs to know about this."

AMYGOODMAN: Your uncle had tried to get an ambulance?

AMERSHURRAB: Yes.

AMYGOODMAN: How did he know anything was going on?

AMERSHURRAB:
Later, they allowed my dad to use his cellphone, and he called my
uncle. And my uncle reached the area with an ambulance. They would not
allow them through. And it’s not only my uncle. My dad was on phone
calls throughout the night to local press, to international media, to
local, international human rights organizations, to Israeli human rights
organizations. He was talking with everyone—and in vain. Throughout
that night, once I got the news, we were talking everyone. We reached
members of the Israeli Knesset. We tried to contact the Obama transition
team. We contacted everyone. People in all five continents were making
calls trying to reach people to get them help. But it was in vain. It
wasn’t until 7:00 a.m. the next day, the 17th—they were shot on the
16th. On 7:00 a.m.—

AMYGOODMAN: This was January.

AMERSHURRAB:
Yes, 2009—7:00 a.m., we got a word through a member of the Knesset, a
Palestinian member of the Knesset that we reached, that the Israeli army
would allow an ambulance to go in, but only at noon, when the
humanitarian ceasefire would start for the next day. And the soldiers
were watching them all that time. They refused to give them a band-aid.
They refused to give them anything to stop the bleeding. They refused to
give them a sip of water, a blanket. Nothing. My brother Ibrahim was
shivering next to my dad, and they wouldn’t do anything other than curse
at them, laugh at them and watch them suffer. Later on, we found that
they left graffiti on the wall of the house that said, "Kahane was
right."

AMYGOODMAN: Referring to?

AMERSHURRAB:
Meir Kahane, the extremist Israeli rabbi who called for the killing or
transfer of all Arabs and Palestinians from Palestine and Israel to
other nations, to make Israel a purely Jewish state.

AMYGOODMAN:
I wanted to get your response to Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who
was speaking to CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last week, saying that Hamas is
intentionally endangering Palestinian civilians in hopes that the
gruesome images will turn the international community against Israel.

PRIMEMINISTERBENJAMINNETANYAHU:
All civilian casualties are unintended by us, but actually intended by
Hamas. They want to pile up as many civilian dead as they can, because
somebody said they use—I mean, it’s gruesome. They use telegenically
dead Palestinians for their cause. They want—the more dead, the better.

AMERSHURRAB:
Well, first of all, I want to jump on that phrase "telegenically dead."
I hear that phrase, and I really want to throw up. This is just
despicable description of dead children, women. That’s what you call
them? Instead of saying "condolences," instead of saying "we are sorry,"
you say "telegenically dead"? This is extremely offensive, to start
with.

And then, to Prime Minister Netanyahu—Prime
Minister Netanyahu and all the Israeli spokespersons, in Arabic, in
English, in Hebrew, in every language, they say they use precision
bombs. They say they use smart weapons, and they pinpoint their attacks.
And several Israeli spokespeople said every attack has hit its intended
target. And now we know what are the intended targets. It’s children.
It’s families. It’s women. An Israeli reserve general said, "We are
going to kill their families so they learn not to come back again." An
Israeli professor at Bar-Ilan University said, "Kill them, kill their
kids, rape their women, kill their children, so that they learn." An
Israeli member of the Knesset, who is a member of the ruling coalition,
has wrote a posting on Facebook, that received several thousand likes,
calling for the extermination of Palestinians, killing all their kids,
killing the mothers who give birth to those "snakes."

So, what Israel says—we know that Israel
uses—repeatedly has used the claim that Palestinians use human shields.
That claim has been discredited over and over and over again, by the
Goldstone Report, by the U.N., by all respectable human rights
organizations. On the contrary, there is plenty of proof, plenty of
evidence, that Israel uses Palestinians as human shields, as I know it
personally in the case of my family and my brothers, where they were
occupying a house, holding the local residents as human shields. UNICEF,
about three months ago, issued a report documenting Israel’s use of
children as human shields. That was corroborated recently by a report
for, I believe, the U.N. initiative for children, that also documented
Israel’s use of human shields. So, Israel is deliberately targeting
civilians. It’s from the day one of this attack. They have been bombing
houses, wiping entire families, to try to scare people into submission.

AMYGOODMAN: The Knesset member that you referred to, Ayelet Shaked—

AMERSHURRAB: Yes.

AMYGOODMAN:
—with the Jewish Home party, who wrote that on her Facebook page,
saying that the killings should include the mothers of the martyrs,
saying that they should go, as should the physical homes in which they
raise the snakes, saying because they give birth to the little snakes.
Here you are in the United States. How are you dealing with all of what
has happened in not only the last few weeks, but, of course, because
your two brothers were killed in 2009? You went to Middlebury College.
We saw you just after that, at Operation Cast Lead. Now you’re in
California at Monterey, a graduate student.

AMERSHURRAB:
Well, there are two facets to it. On one side, the U.S. government is a
full partner in the murder of Palestinians, including my brothers. The
United States provides over $3 billion of direct military aid to Israel
annually. The Congress has just approved or in the process of approving
an additional $600 million in military aid to Israel. They tagged onto
the bill, the immigration bill for dealing with undocumented
children—they tagged on about $225 million in additional aid for the
Iron Dome in Israel. And the U.S. provides blank backing to Israel in
the U.N., in the Security Council, everywhere, although we know
sometimes it goes against the U.S.’s stances. Israel, just today,
rejected the American initiative for ceasefire, and Secretary Kerry
retracted and said, "Oh, we never offered them an initiative." Secretary
Kerry, have some courage. Have some integrity. You had a hot-mic moment
that showed what you really felt about it. How about you show it and
say it in a scheduled meeting as opposed to a hot-mic moment?

AMYGOODMAN: Explain what you mean, for those who aren’t familiar with that moment in the Fox studio.

AMERSHURRAB:
Secretary Kerry, when he was appearing—I believe last Sunday, when he
was appearing on the different Sunday shows, he was on Fox preparing to
appear their Sunday morning show—

AMYGOODMAN:
Actually, we have a clip of that, so this was one of the comments he
made on this round of the network talk shows to publicly defend Israel’s
assault on Gaza, but in a private phone call that was caught on camera
in between commercial breaks, Kerry appeared to speak sarcastically
about the massive civilian toll in the attacks. He was speaking to an
aide on his speaker phone on his cellphone.

SECRETARY OF STATEJOHNKERRY: It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation. It’s a hell of a pinpoint operation.

AIDE: Right, it’s escalating significantly, and it just underscores the need for a ceasefire.

SECRETARY OF STATEJOHNKERRY: We’ve got to get over there.

AIDE: Yup, yup.

SECRETARY OF STATEJOHNKERRY: Thank you, John. I think, John, we ought to go tonight. I think it’s crazy to be sitting around.

AMYGOODMAN:
That was John Kerry in Fox’s studio. That’s not on the air, although
they recorded it and then played it for him on Fox to respond to.

AMERSHURRAB:
And then he tried to backtrack the comment, and then he went to Israel
and repeated the same talking points about Israel having the right to
defend itself. Yes, Israel does have the right to defend itself, as does
every nation and every people, including the Palestinian people, who
have been under occupation since 1967. And we, in Gaza, have been living
under a terrible siege since 2007, but we don’t hear Secretary Kerry
talk about this, at least not in public.

AMYGOODMAN: What does that siege mean to you in daily life?

AMERSHURRAB:
That siege and blockade of Gaza that has been implemented by Israel
against Gaza Strip since 2007, that has been at its strictest form, but
Gaza has been suffering from one degree or another of siege since the
occupation in 1967. But that siege, what it means, it shuts down all of
Gaza’s borders and crossings, most of them with Israel, with only one
with Egypt that’s also shut down by the Egyptian authorities; Israeli
warships and boats in the sea, and airplanes and drones in the sky. That
means they ration everything that comes in and out, from food to
medicine, to pens and papers and pencils, construction material, gas,
natural gas, potato chips, cardamom, chocolate. And it’s all for
security concerns. I know people who have died because the chemotherapy
they required for their cancer treatment was not allowed in, people who
have died because spare parts for a dialysis machine they required for
their kidney condition were not allowed in. I know people who have lost
very lucrative and full scholarships in some top universities because
they were not allowed out. I know people—ambulances that couldn’t come
to retrieve victims because they didn’t have gas.

AMYGOODMAN:
How do you respond to the Israeli military saying they’re moving into
Gaza to destroy the maze of tunnels because they’re used to smuggle in
weapons?

AMERSHURRAB:
The tunnels have been used, until recently, until they have been
practically fully destroyed by the Egyptian authorities—they have been
used primarily as a commercial avenue. It has been used as a venue for
trade, getting goods in and out of Gaza, or primarily into Gaza, and
allowing people to get in and out of Gaza. My brother—for instance, my
brother’s in-laws managed—two years ago, they managed to go to Gaza for
the first time in over 30 years through one of the tunnels. That’s the
only way, if all the official crossings are closed, if the Israeli
government wants to put the Palestinians on a diet. An Israeli
government official said, "We are going to put the Palestinians on a
diet." They were allowing—Gisha, an Israeli human rights organization,
revealed that. And they were calculating, cynically calculating, 2,000
calories per day per person of food to be allowed in, so people do not
starve but just barely survive. The tunnels came and helped change some
of that. The tunnels were primarily used, as I said, to let people in
and out and to get everything in, from cars to gas, to construction
materials. After the so-called Operation Cast Lead, tens of thousands of
houses were destroyed.

AMYGOODMAN:
Do you think—do you believe that the Israeli military is bombing Gaza
because of Hamas and the other groups firing thousands of rockets into
Israel?

AMERSHURRAB:
Well, Amy, over the past two years, there have been virtually no
rockets coming out of Gaza, and Israel continued to siege Gaza and
blockade Gaza. And that siege is a form of slow death. People are saying
we can either die quickly now, or we die slowly through the siege and
the blockade. If I’m a father and I cannot get a life-saving medicine
for my kid because of that siege, how am I going to feel? What am I
going to do? There were no rockets before 2001; Israel continued to
occupy Gaza. There were no rockets in the ’90s and the ’80s; Israel
continued to occupy Gaza and kill Palestinians.

AMYGOODMAN:
Amer, we’re going to have to leave it there. We are going to turn in a
moment to the Israeli historian Ilan Pappé, speaking to us from Haifa.
My condolences again to you and your family. And I want to thank you
very much for being with us, I’m so sorry under these circumstances.

AMERSHURRAB: Thank you so much, Amy, for the wonderful work you do every day.

AMYGOODMAN:
Amer Shurrab is a graduate student at the Monterey Institute for
International Studies in California. He graduated from Middlebury
College. He is from Khan Younis in Gaza. This is Democracy Now! We’ll be back in a moment.

TMZ: Where are the [Palestinian] civilians supposed to go?Joan Rivers: I don't care! They started it. You're all insane. They started it!BBC should be ashamed of themselves and CNN should be ashamed of themselves... I have been over there. That's how I know.

We think Joan Rivers, where Israel is concerned, is a goddamned liar who would have any chump stupid enough to believe her accept the proposition that Palestinian emnity [and rockets] toward Israel come from nowhere, when in fact Israel has been provoking and abusing Gaza since before Hamas even existed.
If Rivers has really been to Gaza, as she implies, how come she doesn't know or acknowledge the following, (see highlighted text box) from the Jewish Voice for Peace fact sheet?
Since 2001, rocket attacks have killed about 30 Israelis, 270 fewer deaths than occurred in Israel in 2013 from traffic accidents alone.
On Saturday, NBC aired a viral video showing a Palestinian youth combing the rubble of what used to be his neighborhood, looking for buried relatives and/or friends. An Israeli sniper shot him in the hand, then finished him off seconds later. Israel says there is no evidence that an Israeli sniper was responsible.
Go fuck yourself, Joan Rivers.

By Sunday evening, AKSARBENT usually starts to jones for a jolt of funny from late night comedians after a two-day deprivation of same. That's when we turn to the Leavenworth St. blog for a laugh, and we are rarely disappointed, especially when we run across gems like this:

...But when Bill and Hillary’s cash comes from making speeches and
selling books based off their time in government, it is pretty tough to
try to pretend they’re all about the hard work.
Be interesting to see if Dems reject that crap now...

Of course not everything at Leavenworth St. is inadvertently funny. Some of it seriously creeps us out, like streetsweeper's unsolicited advice to TransCanada's Lee Terry, who had the temerity to state the obvious to CNN's Dana Bash about the Tea Party defeat of Eric Cantor making it even harder for Republicans to compromise on anything:

A block of silent protesters greeted thousands of people arriving for last Thursday's Jazz On The Green performance at Midtown Crossing. AKSARBENT saw no mention of the outrage at Israel's disproportionate offensive in Gaza from any of the four network-affiliated Omaha TV stations: KETV, KMTV, WOWT and Fox 42. A search of "Gaza" and "Israel" with "protest" "Omaha" yielded no hits on Omaha.com, the website of the Omaha World-Herald.

Israel's rationalization for its attacks on Gaza civilians is that Hamas is bombarding it with rockets. From 2001 until July 17th, 2014, about 28 Israelis died from Hamas rocket attacks. More than ten times as many Israelis died in 2013 in traffic accidents.

300 Israelis died in car accidents in 2013. Two died in Hamas rocket attacks in this crisis. Maybe Hamas should just sell cars to Israel?
— alan jones (@bigyahu) July 21, 2014

Today, Al Jazeera reported that the Israeli offensive in Gaza has so far killed at least 848
Palestinians, including scores of children, and left more than 5,200
people injured. Wednesday, CNN reported that 28 Israeli soldiers and two civilians have died during the Gaza strife this year.

So Mark Ruffalo was sitting next to Chris Hemsworth at ComicCon promoting the newest installment in the Avengers Marvel movie franchise and he couldn't resist (because he is expert at movie promotion) pulling up Hemsworth's short t-shirt sleeve to show off Hemsworth's right bicep and then Hemsworth grabbed Ruffalo's long-sleeved arm for a gun show comparison and then Ploy made an animated gif out of it, which Buzzfeed liked and then AKSARBENT saw it on Buzzfeed but it was way too fast so AKSARBENT re-animated the gif (just the good part) but slowed it down to either porn or TMZ perp-walk speed, whichever term you like, OK? By the way, AKSARBENT knows what TMZ really stands for, and if five people comment on this post, we'll post an addendum and tell you.

Sunday, July 27, 2014

Israel denies any responsibility.
20% of the Israeli
military budget is paid for by your tax dollars,
generously doled out by every year by Rep. Lee Terry(402-397-9944, 202-225-4155) and and Rep. Adrian Smith (308-384-3900, 308-633-6333, 202-225-0207).
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid, and unlike
other countries, which get their money in quarterly installments, Israel gets its 3.1 billion upfront, at the beginning of the year:

This is significant: It means that Israel can start earning interest on
the money right away – interest paid by the US since Israel invests
these funds in US Treasury notes. In addition, because the US government
operates at a deficit, it must borrow money in order to give it to
Israel and then pay interest on it all year. Together these cost US
taxpayers more than $100 million every year.

The message to the women who the league claims constitute 50% of its fan base is simple: The NFL wants your money. It will do nothing else for you. It will tolerate those who abuse you verbally and those who abuse you physically and its elder statesman will talk about the media distractions that could ensue because one of the NFL's gay-active players has finally self identified without saying a word about the media distractions that could ensue because a star player has knocked out his wife and got only 2/5 of the penalty another player got for giving an opponent a 30-stitch cut during a game.

Saturday, July 26, 2014

We're guessing that if FB really did suspend Israel's Irish Embassy facebook account for racism, that it probably had something to do with these doctored photos, posted on both IsraelInIreland's FB page and twitter account but now removed.

We searched for IsraelInIreland on Facebook a few minutes ago and came up with nothing.

Hey @IsraelinIreland Do you know how hard it is to get a facebook page shut down for racism in Ireland?? You guys must have racisted hard.

Claire Thompson reminds us that "U.S. taxpayers fund 20% of Israel's military, providing over $3.1 billion in weapons each year, making U.S. taxpayers deeply complicit in Israel’s crimes against Palestinians. The State Department and Congress could immediately end these attacks by suspending military aid to Israel and brokering a lasting ceasefire agreement and an end to Israel’s illegal blockade of the Gaza Strip. Israel is firing U.S.-funded precision weapons against civilians and civilian infrastructure. This flagrant misuse of U.S.-supplied weapons is a clear violation of U.S. laws like the Foreign Assistance Act and Arms Export Control Act."
Israel's last attack on Gaza was almost certainly a violation of the Arms Export Control Act and that country's current assault on Gaza civilians, including four attacks on hospitals in four days, is even worse.
But Rep. Lee Terry and Rep. Adrian Smith keep lavishing billions of your taxes on Israel, a country with an unemployment rate lower than that of the U.S.
Israel has repeatedly attacked Gaza hospitals in recent days, including the Al-Aqsa medical facility, prompting the following comment to Al Jazeera:

Dr Medhat Abbas, director of al-Aqsa Hospital, said any Israeli claim that Hamas was using the hospital "was a big lie". "I challenge anyone in the international community to prove that. There are no weapons in our hospital," Abbas said. We are ready for any inspection. Any international organisation can come and make sure we have nothing in our hospital." "They are professional liars and killers."

Gawker said Freshman Florida GOP Congressman Curt Clawson ("I love your country!") mistook senior U.S. officials Nisha Biswal (State Department) and Arun Kumar (Commerce Department) as foreign nationals (India) because he apparently wasn't paying attention when they were introduced and also didn't check the cheat sheet on his table which listed everyone in the meeting
From Foreign Policy:

While Clawson's office did not respond to a request for comment, the congressman apologized in a statement to USA Today later
on Friday. "I made a mistake in speaking before being fully briefed and
I apologize. I'm a quick study, but in this case I shot an air ball,"
he said.

Friday, July 25, 2014

The four words are "sexual orientation" and "gender identity, and that is what hundreds of supporting individuals and organizations want added to the 1964 Civil Rights Act, which they feel will address antigay discrimination in one fell swoop rather than by a patchwork of state and local laws and court decisions. You can take the pledge here.

The above Daily Show piece mentioned, in passing, that the feds have confiscated $5,000,000,000 in assets — but that doesn't include state and local drug asset seizures like ones made by the hyperactive Tenana, TX police, subject to a class action suit for their abusive interpretation of civil forfeiture laws and depicted in a Daily Show interview of one of that police department's victims.
The same thing is going on in other states. Below is Tennessee's outrageous abuse of that state's civil forfeiture legislation.

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

Here are screencaps of AKSARBENT's twitter conversation with OPD last year, in case the Omaha Police Department tweets accidentally get deleted...

To reiterate: In February of 2013 the Omaha Police told us they "recovered" 67% of stolen vehicles.
Last Sunday, however, the Omaha World-Herald printed the following, based on data provided to it by the Omaha Police Department:

...Police solved 20 percent of all car thefts in 2004; last year that number was down to 12 percent.
...Omaha’s 12 percent clearance rate last year was on par with the national average. But it amounts to a major drop from a decade ago, when police handled a higher number of stolen car cases and solved more of them.

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Garner played it straight and insisted that others do so too. His departure from the TV show that made him famous, Maverick, happened after he sued Warner Bros. for breach of contract when they stopped paying him during a writers’
strike. He proved in court that the studio had been secretly stockpiling scripts.
Garner did two stints as Doris Day's husband in Universal rom-coms (one, The Thrill of it All, delightfully eviscerated TV and advertising) and charmed America as Mariotte Hartley's partner in a very successful Polaroid TV ad campaign. (Polaroid initially wanted Paul Newman, but Newman refused to sign on to a morals clause in his contract unless Polaroid did too.) From Time critic Richard Corliss' valentine:

As faithful in life as in his craft, Garner held true to the Democratic
Party, for which he campaigned on behalf of civil rights and a greener
Earth, and to his wife of 58 years, Lois Clarke.

AKSARBENT suggests you toast Garner's life and work by watching him (and Julie Andrews) in The Americanization of Emily.

Friday, July 18, 2014

Now that the residual genius of Gallagher's stint at the National Organization for Marriage is guiding that organization to victory after victory in state after state and court after court over the dark forces of marriage equality, she is free to advise the GOP on the errors of its ways.
To whit: Voters don't mind the diminution of jobs in the USA due to increasing automation: what they really care about is declining purchasing power!
Of course! If only Mitt Romney had had Maggie's wisdom to draw on while he was running, he could have made a compaign ad of himself at a Piggly-Wiggly complaining about the price of coffee (well, milk) and voters would have connected with him, and the GOP would now be occupying the White House, happily running interference for the beleaguered 1% who now pay far too much for groceries because Obama.

...the GOP’s single biggest need is a clear narrative for why voters are
experiencing broad and deep drops in their own families’ standard of
living. Massive wage stagnation and climbing health-insurance costs
combine with price increases in the things that consume middle- and
working-class family budgets: groceries, gas, utilities. Main Street
hurts while Obama’s Wall Street favorites feast on government
guarantees. Calling Dems on their imagined pink-elephant threats
to contraception, demanding respect for diversity (and nuns), and
running ads calling the Democrats on their abortion extremism is the way
to win the War for Women. That and beginning to name the pain that all
families are feeling. It’s not “jobs” or “job creation” per se, it
is the broad persistent decline in purchasing power that is weighing
most heavily on voters’ minds. A good place to start would be describing
that concern and explaining it, between now and November, and coming up
with something that helps. It is our most urgent need.

Obama's remarks were tacked on to the end of his statement about the downing of a Malaysian Airlines 777 yesterday.

Let me close by making one additional comment. On board Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17, there were apparently nearly 100 researchers and advocates traveling to an international conference in Australia dedicated to combating AIDS/HIV. These were men and women who had dedicated their own lives to saving the lives of others and they were taken from us in a senseless act of violence. In this world today, we shouldn’t forget that in the midst of conflict and killing, there are people like these -- people who are focused on what can be built rather than what can be destroyed; people who are focused on how they can help people that they’ve never met; people who define themselves not by what makes them different from other people but by the humanity that we hold in common. It’s important for us to lift them up and to affirm their lives. And it’s time for us to heed their example.

Although other airlines avoided overflights of the strife-wracked Ukraine, Malaysian Airlines did not, courting the increased risk and danger to passengers in order to save money on fuel.
The Ukrainian government has released a radio intercept of Russian separatists admitting that they shot down a civilian plane, and LiveLeak has the audio, with a link to a partial translation.
Here is how Russia's proxies may already have destroyed evidence of complicity and or responsibility on their part:

An assistant to the insurgency's military commander said Friday that rebels had recovered multiple devices from the wreckage and were considering what to do with them, raising fears they could be headed to Moscow. But Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said Russia had no intention of getting hold of the boxes, and insurgent leader Aleksandr Borodai later contradicted his colleague and said the rebels don't have them anyway... Charles Heyman, editor of "Armed Forces of the EU," said missile casings could help establish who had supplied the weapons that brought down the plane. But he said it was likely that the rebels — if they fired the missile — would have removed any missile-casing debris from the scene. Heyman said the missile launcher would bear ID numbers that could establish whether it was recently supplied by Russia or came from Ukrainian forces. But he said if rebels mistakenly targeted a commercial airliner, thinking it was a Ukrainian military plane, they may have subsequently fled and taken the missile launcher into Russia. The Ukrainian Interior Ministry released video purporting to show exactly that: a truck carrying a Buk missile launcher with one of its four missiles apparently missing, rolling toward the Russian border. The ministry said the footage was captured by a police surveillance squad at dawn Friday. There was no way to independently verify that claim.

In a rare and surprising act of political defiance on Tuesday, more
than 100 Republicans, including current and former officeholders,
endorsed Brownback’s opponent, statehouse Democratic leader Paul Davis...
Davis says Brownback’s
hard-right agenda has damaged the state economy and undermined the
spirit of compromise that had long prevailed in the state capitol.
...One of those GOP moderates is Steve Morris. As the president of the
Kansas state Senate when Brownback was sworn into office in 2011, Morris
battled with Brownback and conservatives in the statehouse, including
over highly contentious tax reform legislation that has become a central
issue in this year’s campaign. When Morris faced a conservative primary
challenge in 2012, the Koch brothers’ Americans for Prosperity, Kansas
Right to Life and the Kansas Chamber of Commerce spent big to help his
opponent pull off an upset against the GOP leader.
...A Survey USA poll last month showed the governor losing to Davis
by six points, with one in four registered Republicans defecting to the
Democratic ticket, as well as independents turning the Democrat’s way by
19 points.

Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz.,
said: "I believe Joni Ernst's service to our nation is honorable and
praiseworthy, but clearly Bruce Braley and his liberal allies disagree.
It is shameful that they would launch cheap political attacks against
her while she is in uniform and unable to respond or defend herself."

Both the Koch Bros.-funded astroturf group, Americans
for Prosperity, and American Crossroads, the Karl Rove-founded group, are currently attacking Ernst's Democratic opponent, Bruce Braley, whose campaign responded via a statement from former Iowa State Senator Jack Kibbie, a veteran of the Korean War:

"This
political attack is hypocrisy at its worst. Joni Ernst’s campaign and
her allies have been running attack ads against Bruce for days, and this
week the spending disparity is more than 4 to 1," Kibbie said.

He
added that if McCain and the Ernst campaign are so concerned, they
ought to suspend their own efforts and call on their allies to do the
same.

The Daily Telegraph has published the entire transcript of Australian Olympic swimmer Ian Thorpe's coming-out interview with Michael Parkinson. While a predictable amount of attention has been heaped on Thorpe's continued lying about his sexual orientation in the face of relentless hounding by the tabloid press, AKSARBENT found Thorpe's recounting of his 400 meter freestyle win and his role in Australia's 4x100 relay win riveting. Thorpe is Australia's most successful Olympian, having won 5 Gold, 3 Silver and 1 Bronze medals.

Ian Thorpe: This was the Mens’ 4 by 100 relay. It was a race that the American team had never been beaten — ...in the entire history, no never been beaten and this was the cold war,
where we have athletes and this was you know, a real battle! But for
some reason, people in the streets started to think we could win! And we
were 2 seconds behind or something in terms of where we were. But then
the swim team started to believe that we could win, and then there’s
about 6 of us looking around going ‘how are we going to do this?’. And
so we’re all putting on that we believe that we can, but we just didn’t
know how it would happen! And I was swimming down after receiving my
gold medal for the 400m freestyle, I went to put on a swimsuit, it
ripped! Michael Parkinson: How big a rip? Ian Thorpe:
Oh completely, I ripped the zipper off it! Because I was trying to get
it on and I didn’t have much time. And so we had 10-20 people trying to
help me get it on which was not working and also someone on the radio
mike saying, ‘he’s coming’. Because you have to check yourself off
before you swim. And I’m not coming! I’m still getting it on and so I
got rid of everyone, I had one person. And I’m like ‘Adam’, help me get
this thing on, and I’m trying to get my wet swimsuit back on and pulling
it up and still hearing it. I ran through, I saw and smiled at a lady
who knew me from when I was a kid who ticked me off just in time. I ran
out just behind the blocks just as Australia was announced and I put my
hands up with the rest of the team. Everyone said, ‘where have you
been?’, and I’m like, ‘we’ll just get on with this!’. And this race was
electrifying. We had Michael Klim who led, he broke the World Record, as
the lead-off so then we had distance in front of the Americans. Then it
was followed by Chris Fydler who was one of the senior swimmers on our
team. And Chris was the best sprintour in the team for a long time, a
lot of experience. So we knew we’re always going to be faster the
second lap of the race, and that we’d fight for each one of them. We
knew what the American’s team’s strategy would be, the placement of
athletes, whatever else, the same as they’ve always done it! And Chris
Fydler had the swim of his life. Then it comes in to Ashley Callus who
went into the pool but I can remember Michael Klim hitting me going,
‘what time did I do?’, I said it was the World Record. He said ‘yeah,
but what time?’, and I said it’s the World Record that means no one’s
gone faster than that before so whatever it was it’s your best time too. But we continued on, and I was watching Ashley. I’d just asked the
guys, all I want is a lead. And Ashley came in, and I knew that their
fingers were touching together, or close to it but I did have a lead.
When I said a lead, I should have been more specific, to not an
armstroke! I wanted body lengths. I was up again a swimmer called Gary
Hold Jr, he’s quite an outspoken swimmer. He said that he’d smash the
Australian team like guitars. He’s a nice guy by the way, but he said
these stupid things...

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

A Burger King in San Francisco, earlier this year, created a special "Pride" Whopper which differed from a regular Whopper only in its rainbow-colored wrapping.
This was enough of a hook to allow American Family Association's Bryan Fischerto troll BK and exploit the notoriety by claiming, on his Focal Point show, broadcast on hundreds of AFA low power radio stations, that his very prosperous organization might issue an "action alert," because if this sort of thing isn't stopped in San Francisco, “this kind of nonsense, then it's going to be spreading across the entire fruited plain and you're going to be going to your Burger King in Des Moines, Iowa and you're going to have a rainbow color wrapper for your Whopper."
Fischer went on to predict that the product would be disastrous for Burger King because people do not want to have to think of two men having sex when they sit down to eat a hamburger because evidently that's what Bryan Fischer personally thinks when he sees a rainbow emblem.

Monday, July 14, 2014

Vitaly Zdorovet­skiy, who has about 1.5 million fans on Facebook
and 200,000 followers on Twitter, could be seen blowing kisses at
the crowd and running toward the players.
The incident happened in the second half of the game at the
Maracana Stadium, when the the two teams level at 0-0. Germany
eventually won the match 1-0 in extra time.
In the stunt, Zdorovetskiy removed his red T-shirt to reveal the
words “natural born prankster” written in English on his chest.
He made a beeline towards defender Benedikt Howedes, whom he
tried to kiss. The shocked German looked rather nonplussed.
However, around 1 billion TV viewers across the world were left
in the dark about what had happened, as the host broadcaster
immediately cut away to a picture of Christ the Redeemer set
against the sunset. This is common when people invade pitches in
order not to give them extra publicity and encourage more people
to do the same.
Zdorovetsky’s actions impressed NBA basketball superstar Lebron James, however, who immediately uploaded
photos of Zdorovetsky running on to the field of play onto his
Instagram account.

Zdorovetskiy, who now lives in America, wrote "Natural Born Prankster" on his torso before his stunt, which ended when he was tackled and carried off the field by five "stewards" and arrested. Naturally he took a selfie from jail.
Basketball star Lebron James took video of the incident and posted it on his Instagram account.

Maynard (Bob "Gilligan's Island" Denver) slyly flashes a nipple to the CBS eye while trying to talk his best buddy Dobie Gillis (Dwayne Hick­man) into taking off all his clothes. Whoever said 1950s television was a vast waste­land obviously didn't know where to look.